and i in these lines say
by closingdoors
Summary: 'Because she knows what words should be said now. The words to make him see.' Spoilers for Frozen Heat dedication but not the book. COMPLETE.


**and i in these lines say  
**

* * *

**To KT, because I often tell her I've written something happy and make her feel safe with my writing, only for her to find it's a cruel trick and question my idea of happiness. Or my sanity. Same thing, kind of.**

* * *

_And I in these lines say:_  
_Like this I want you, love,_  
_love, Like this I love you,_  
_as you dress_  
_and how your hair lifts up_  
_and how your mouth smiles,_  
_light as the water_  
_of the spring upon the pure stones,_  
_Like this I love you, beloved._  
_-And Because Love Battles, Pablo Neruda._

* * *

Apparently, she still inspires him.

He traces ideas into her skin at night, once he's done mapping it all with his mouth and his tongue and oh _God _his teeth, and they lay perfectly sated beside each other in the soft darkness. Sometimes they're just single words lulling around in his head that he traces onto the slender space of her back, or the slope of her breast. Sometimes they're ideas of murderers, plot twists and characters and _oh, _they usually end up somewhere along the back of her thighs. And then the sentences. She can't tell what they say exactly, but she delights in the way his fingers are so soft and gentle against her skin, the excitement she can feel buzzing on the tips of his fingertips. They usually get lost half way; instead his fingers seek _her _instead of the fantasy.

The next morning he'll write them down. All those words or ideas or sentences. She asks him, only once, how he even remembers them after sleeping. He just gives her a sly grin and waggles his eyebrows, makes a joke about how he remembers every inch of her skin.

She whacks him lightly on the arm for the leer in his voice, but gives him a pleased smile nonetheless.

He isn't there the first time she reads the Frozen Heat dedication. Not there with his delightfully warm body beside hers and his low, thrilling voice reading to her. Instead he's out on a _stupid _book tour that he claims Gina forced him into, signing copies of the book and smiling at his adoring fans in some other part of the country.

While she's left alone in his bed, aching for him and clutching onto that same book.

She's read snatches of it. When he accidentally leaves his laptop on around her, or when she really pays attention to the words he traces into her skin. Other than that, he's teased her with endless sing-songs of "Spoilers!" and writing her fake paragraphs, stringing her along into thinking they're from the real thing. The stupid fool.

But this, the dedication, she's not been sure at all as to what he'd put. He'd asked her if she'd be okay with him dedicating the book to her, and she'd been unsure if he'd really be able to hide anything even in the stupid dedication. The amount of rumours that had spiralled from the first dedication had been bad enough.

So now she takes a deep breath, pushes away her qualms, and opens the damn book.

_To all the remarkable, maddening, challenging, frustrating people who inspire us to do great things._

Oh.

_Oh._

And then suddenly she's not curled up, alone, in his bed but instead she's weeks away in her own apartment, and he's telling her he loves her and not to pursue her Mother's murder.

Kate drops the book on the bed, almost falls out of it in her haste to escape from the unsually lonely luxury, and grabs her phone from the bedside table. Presses _1 _for Castle and paces as she waits.

No answer.

With a growl, Kate hangs up and tries again, biting her lower lip as she waits.

She's so close to hanging up again when his blessed voice floats through the cell. "Kate. Hey." He greets her warmly, and she feels her insides that had coiled loosen.

"Castle. Castle, I started the book."

"Oh?"

"I mean, no, I _haven't _ started it, I just…"

Hm. How does she explain this without sounding like a lovesick, obsessive teenager? How does one go about saying '_I pretty much just re-fell in love with you through your dedication, thank you very much' _without sounding crazy? Apparently, there aren't words.

But oh, his words-

Castle laughs, loose and relaxed. "Kate, I know you're a fan, but even this is a bit extreme for you."

Stupid man.

"No, Castle, I mean… I read the dedication. I read it. Just now."

He's silent for a while, breathing in her words. She presses the cell harder against her ear, and can almost imagine him behind her, arms encircling her waist and mouth brushing against the shell of her ear. It sends a wonderful shiver down her spine.

"You liked it?"

His voice is smooth and hopeful, but beneath it she can sense the underlying linger of insecurity. It makes her heart clench with guilt, but she fights it away. Because she _knows _what words should be said now. The words to make him see. But not now, not over the phone, she needs him to be _here_-

"Rick… It's perfect."

She can almost feel him smiling through the phone.

"Good. That's- That's good. And, see? I can do subtle."

She laughs, bright and happy, before she talks again. "Careful, Castle, smug isn't attractive."

"Ah. Okay. Smugness is one hundred percent no longer here, then."

Again, she laughs, lower and smaller this time. And she longs for him. Wishes he were here so she could reach out and kiss him senseless, show him all the ways she loves him in all the ways she's never said, until the words, the _actual _words, would come. She's got walls, she probably always will, but he's helping. Does he know how much?

"I miss you." She says instead of the words, and she can hear a kind of astounded awe on the other side of the phone.

She doesn't blame him. Even though they've been together for almost three months now, she's not all too open about her feelings. More so than she's ever been, but nonetheless closed off. Stupid walls. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"Yeah." He whispers slowly. "Yeah, I miss you too."

And just like that she realises that maybe it's okay to be so open about these things.

She still doesn't say the words, though. Not after an hour of talking, in which she lays back down in his bed (since when has she began staying here instead of her own place?), not even when they're saying goodbye and he says the words to her. Instead the words stay locked away in a precious prison reserved for his return. She can be patient. He was patient, extraordinarily patient, for her. Time to be fair.

Kate finds that she even has a _side _of the bed. It's the right. And she misses him being there beside her, a warm body with a beating heart and comforting arms. And _oh, _so much love. But mostly, and most surprisingly, she misses slipping away into the land of content dreams with the feel of his fingers tracing words on her skin.

_R…_

As Kate wakes, she frowns groggily, staring at the red numbers on the clock beside her and willing for them to sharpen from a blur.

_E…_

She feels warm. She feels tingles in the pit of her stomach and love swirling through her veins and curling her toes.

_M…_

She feels… His fingers?

_A…_

The clock finally fades into her view, and she finds she's slept solidly for ten hours. Hm. Strange.

_R…_

With a startled jolt, Kate realises she's no longer alone. At her jolt, she feels rather than hears a low, throaty laugh rumbling through his chest, pressing into her side, mouth brushing a kiss to the bottom of her jaw.

_K…_

"Castle…"

Kate turns her head to look at him, finds him laying beside her where he always should be, inches away and tracing letters into the small of her back. Oh. He's _here._

_A…_

Castle uses his free hand to press his index finger against her lip into a quieting motion, instead she finds herself reflexively kissing the pad of his finger softly. She watches, entranced, as his eyes darken subtly at that.

_B…_

Her hand reaches up to lace with his, and she brushes her lips against his knuckles, humming with happiness.

_L…_

Her face ducks to tuck into the crook of his shoulder, and she breathes him in and lets him wrap himself around her heart without any walls stopping him. No more walls.

_E…_

Kate gasps when he stops, finally taking in the word.

_Remarkable._

She pulls away slightly- not too far, never too far ever again- to look up at him with a look of admiration in her eyes. He simply grins, begins tracing another word just above the last.

_Maddening._

Kate huffs at that one, but curls herself around him anyway, enjoying the ripple of his muscles as her own fingers skim across his chest.

_Challenging._

The flutter of his heart beneath her palm, splayed wide across his chest, is reassuring against her. And a gentle lull that slowly ebbs her into a tranquil bliss. Oh. If only he knew.

_Frustrating._

Castle chuckles slowly in the silence as she pinches him slightly for that one. At any other time, in any other frame of mind, she would huff and question his choice of words. She gets he was improvising at the time. But, really, _frustrating? _Not terribly flattering, even if he is the one saying it, even if they are his words, and his words are and always will be beautiful and captivating and life-saving.

She must be making a face, because he frowns at her in the half-light of the moon, one hand reaching up for her cheek.

"Kate…" He whispers, and he sounds strained. Then the pad of his thumb strokes slowly across her cheek, and she realises that she's crying.

But she smiles up at him, bright and alive and eyes twinkling, presses her own index finger to his mouth in a mimic of his earlier actions. Beneath her finger, his mouth twitches into a peaceful smile, and her heart pounds as she removes her hand to press against his heart. It's there, on the skin above his beautiful, warm heart, that she traces the words.

_I love you. _


End file.
